Oh, lovely: UN members moving forward on their plans to “regulate” the Internet

posted at 1:51 pm on November 26, 2012 by Erika Johnsen

I put “regulate” in quotation marks, because it’s probably the kindest word that could apply to the censorship, big-brothering, suppression, and brainwashing that are the real goals of this unsettling endeavor.

The Internet is perhaps the most efficiently democratic tool mankind has ever had at its disposal to share information and ideas, conduct business quickly across the globe, and participate in a worldwide forum of free speech — which pretty adequately explains why certain of the world’s actors would really prefer it if we could just clamp down on the whole thing.

The Internet works so well because there’s no one entity controlling it from the top down; it’s made up of countless independent moving parts that come together without a ton of exterior effort or control. You can imagine the hindrances that adding global bureaucracy to the mix would impose, but that’s exactly what a big handful of United Nations members (a.k.a. China, Russia, Iran, and other repressive regimes not particularly fond of free thought) are hoping to accomplish.

Next week, the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is planning a conference in Dubai to update treaty arrangements for international communications, at which certain member states will float ideas to tighten control of the web across national borders with things like international Internet fees and expanded eavesdropping powers. Gordon Crovitz in the WSJ explains why this is a thoroughly terrible idea:

Having the Internet rewired by bureaucrats would be like handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla. The Internet is made up of 40,000 networks that interconnect among 425,000 global routes, cheaply and efficiently delivering messages and other digital content among more than two billion people around the world, with some 500,000 new users a day. …

The self-regulating Internet means no one has to ask for permission to launch a website, and no government can tell network operators how to do their jobs. The arrangement has made the Internet a rare place of permissionless innovation. As former Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard recently pointed out, 90% of cooperative “peering” agreements among networks are “made on a handshake,” adjusting informally as needs change.

Proposals for the new ITU treaty run to more than 200 pages. One idea is to apply the ITU’s long-distance telephone rules to the Internet by creating a “sender-party-pays” rule. International phone calls include a fee from the originating country to the local phone company at the receiving end. Under a sender-pays approach, U.S.-based websites would pay a local network for each visitor from overseas, effectively taxing firms such as Google and Facebook.

Yes, no doubt that many of the planet’s worst players would just love it if it became too expensive for Google, etcetera to serve foreign visitors and hence their citizens were effectively denied access to these sites — but Google sure as heck wouldn’t.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will be holding its World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai next month — and Google contends that Internet censorship might be on the agenda. The Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant has launched an online campaign to express its fear that the conference could freeze both tech companies and billions of users out of the Web governance process. The result, Google asserts, could allow governments and select companies to restrict how citizens access and use the Web.

How frighteningly backwards is it that this is even a thing? It never ceases to amaze me that we continue to financially prop up and supportively legitimize an organization that isn’t committed to peace, justice, and human rights so much as it is the interests of its member states. The moral relativists at the United Nations are not-so-subtly shooting for a globalist, progressive bureaucracy, and they constantly use it as a platform to deign to lecture us on our policies on climate change, firearms, free elections, etcetera. If the United Nations were really about promoting freedom and prosperity, the very idea of this kind of Internet regulation would be laughed off the stage — but it isn’t, and that is deeply disturbing.

Blowback

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So if Russian, China, Iran aren’t too wild about the free flow expression of ideas – why don’t they shut down or restrict the internet in their countries and leave us the heck alone. Couldn’t they set-up a country-wide intranet of sorts?

If the United Nations were really about promoting freedom and prosperity, the very idea of this kind of Internet regulation would be laughed off the stage — but it isn’t, and that is deeply disturbing.

Ah! But the real question remains unanswered. What makes you think the current administration and current US Ambassador to the UN are against this? What makes you think they see an internet tax as a bad way of raising money for the slush fund that is the United Nations budget? Maybe, just maybe, this is part of that newfound flexibility now that the election is over.

So if Russian, China, Iran aren’t too wild about the free flow expression of ideas – why don’t they shut down or restrict the internet in their countries and leave us the heck alone. Couldn’t they set-up a country-wide intranet of sorts?

Hill60 on November 26, 2012 at 2:02 PM

That’s what China & Iran both have, but if they want to open the extranet to their citizens, it becomes nearly impossible to manage data flowing in and out. China is basically behind giant web filters, and yet the citizens can still use proxies to go to the websites they want to go to.

In Iran, there was talk of completely pulling the plug on their internet connection to the world and just running an intranet. Not sure if they’re actually doing that, but I can say that from an IT perspective, trying to centrally plan & manage an intranet that large while also proving content and a reason to use the intranet is an incredibly difficult task to undertake, and I doubt any government would be able to do it.

Also, the citizens want to access the extranet and use the world wide web the rest of us access. It’s much easier for these countries to limit and control ALL content then to try to limit and control WHICH content people can access.

Either way, the citizens will always be one or two steps ahead of their governments when it comes to technology.

Honestly, I’m not too worked up about regulation of the internet. It already exists (Ask Kim Dotcom over at megauploads) and the US already yanks webpages that they don’t agree with…
I’m a pretty technical person, I know I will always be able to get around whatever idiot plan the US govt or the UN or whoever comes up with. If Obama wants to waste policial capital keeping the idiots away from their weird porn, so be it. Less damage he can do to the economy.

In fact, why doesn’t the UN just trademark anything they disagree with, then get the MPAA & the US government to re-route DNS servers away from the sites (aka take them down) for “facilitating copyright infringment”

People just refuse to learn. Cancers like the UN, HAVE to be Cut Out! Until our Ntnl. Debt is back below 10 Trillion, no more money goes to U.N. or any other terrorist/Govt., anywhere! Way too rational a thought, huh? Yea, that’s what I thought, but I threw it out there anyway.

Will be intersting to see how Google really deals with this and how much influence they will have with Obama. Remeber they gave him over $350k in donations and some from Google left for White House Cabinet postitions.

Putin (Ex-KGB), Ineedajob (Iran’s insane ruler who wants to start the Apocolypse – nuking Israel & the U.S. – because it will bring about the return of the ‘ 12th Imom’), & China … along with the U.N. (an organization that has not made a difference / beneficial contribution to the world in DECADES) wants to meed in Dubai to discuss eliminating Freedom of Speech / Truth on a Global Scale, sending the world into tyranical-government controlled darkness forever…..

And the U.S Administration & President who promised to be the ‘most transparent Administration Ev-uh & controlls his own ‘army of U.s. Propoganda-spewing Media is sending an Obama-appointed team to negotiate in ‘our best interest…..

What could POSSIBLY go Wrong?!

A return to the ‘Dark Ages’….maybe the Mayans weren;t so stupid after all….

HA!! The irony, Google loves Obama and his policies, and this is what it will lead to…Google and the rest voted themselves out of business…if not now, it will happen if they keep supporting Obama style politics…

I have no sympathy for Google…this is what they and their employees embrace…

Seems like I remember Google already cooperated with China in restricting its citizens’ access to some sites? And now they’re worried that “The result… could allow governments and select companies to restrict how citizens access and use the Web.”
?

It never ceases to amaze me that we continue to financially prop up and supportively legitimize an organization that isn’t committed to peace, justice, and human rights so much as it is the interests of its member(s) (sic)

“If they do this, I’m down with it. — NavyMustang on November 26, 2012 at 2:38 PM”

Hey NavyMustang, what you don’t get is that the U.N. will decide who gets to ‘police’ the internet, will get to remove comments you make they find offensive or ‘dangerous’. You can be identified as a ‘subversive’ – fined, blocked competely from using ther Internet, & (like in China, possibly further down the road) can receive a visit in the middle of the night because of anti-government dangerous posts & be locked up for as long as they want.

We have seen a MILD case of Controlled Information in this country during the Obama Administration. China, Russia – there are stories in the News now where people who have spoken out against their governments have been jailed for an indefinite period…even killed. Islamist Extremists will be able to use this to shut down any comments/postings of any speech referencing any other religion than Islam because they find such behavior offensive. The U.N. will have the right to make that call, not the U.S.

It would be the DEATH KNELL for Freedon & Liberty throughout the world. Do you really want to hand over decisions / control of OUR Freedom over to the U.N. or any other foreign country/organization?

Seems like I remember Google already cooperated with China in restricting its citizens’ access to some sites? And now they’re worried that “The result… could allow governments and select companies to restrict how citizens access and use the Web.”
?

shaloma on November 26, 2012 at 2:45 PM

Yea, this is how retarded conservatives remember it because they want to find a reason to hate Google. The reality is the exact opposite though. Google fought against censorship in China for years before relenting and taking the same position that every single other search engine has. Bing never fought against censorship. Yahoo never fought against censorship. Conservatives give them complete passes though.

It never ceases to amaze me that we continue to financially prop up and supportively legitimize an organization that isn’t committed to peace, justice, and human rights so much as it is the interests of its member states. The moral relativists at the United Nations are not-so-subtly shooting for a globalist, progressive bureaucracy, and they constantly use it as a platform to deign to lecture us on our policies on climate change, firearms, free elections, etcetera. If the United Nations were really about promoting freedom and prosperity, the very idea of this kind of Internet regulation would be laughed off the stage — but it isn’t, and that is deeply disturbing.

Erika Johnsen

.
The United Nations exists for the sole purpose of taking everything it can from the U.S.

I don’t believe the UN can survive in it’s current state, and apparently the Globalists don’t think so, either. They’re already planning on the WCPA taking over for the UN.

If Obama wants to waste policial capital keeping the idiots away from their weird porn, so be it. Less damage he can do to the economy.

Timin203 on November 26, 2012 at 2:30 PM

If you think keeping people from porn is what Obama, or any of these people, want to control the Internet for, think again. In fact, they like porn. It serves the dual purpose of keeping the masses placated while also promoting the lack of morals, God, and family that are necessary for socialism to succeed.

No, it’s not porn that will go away, it’s any site promoting the free expression of ideas.

Having the Internet rewired by bureaucrats would be like handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla.

More like a gorilla being given the power to tell Stradivarius how to make a violin.

If we had a REAL President, he’d tell the UN to keep their corrupt tyrannical paws off the Internet or he’d pull all the US funding for the organization. It’s the biggest and most powerful freedom machine ever invented, which is why Obama will most likely conspire with our enemies to kill it.